Sabres recap: Tage Thompson scores go-ahead goal in 3-1 win at Seattle
The Buffalo Sabres closed their longest road trip of the season on a high note with a 3-1 win against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena.
Sabres goaltender Alex Lyon, eying the puck in a game earlier this season, finished with 23 saves in Buffalo's 3-1 victory against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday night.
Joed Viera, Buffalo News
The Buffalo Sabres closed their longest road trip of the season on a high note by completing a 3-1 win against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena.
Tage Thompson scored his fourth goal in as many games and Alex Tuch had two assists after missing Thursday's game at Vancouver due to illness, and both helped the Sabres (14-14-4) close the road trip by climbing back to .500.
Thompson leads the Sabres with 29 points (16 goals and 13 assists), now has eight points in the last seven games (four goals, four assists), dating back to Dec. 1, and has scored a goal in each of the Sabres' last four games.
The Sabres finished the six-game road trip 3-3, after notching wins at Edmonton, Vancouver and Seattle since Dec. 9. They lost games in Philadelphia, Winnipeg and Calgary, and are now 5-9-2 on the road. The Sabres also completed their first three-game winning streak of the season.
Thompson was measured but realistic, in regard to the outcome of the six-game road-trip.
“(Finishing) .500, not great and obviously, we want to be better than that,” said Thompson, who scored the go-ahead goal at 10:08 of the second, which gave the Sabres a 2-0 lead before . “But it could have easily gone really bad, the way we started. Very resilient by our group, to find it and turn it around. It’s not easy going on the road, playing, especially when you start the trip off 0-3. A great, great job by our group, just mentally, not letting that get to us and focusing on each day.”
Noah Ostlund rejoined the Sabres for their game against Seattle and saw the biggest difference in his team, between the first two games of the trip and the last.
“The confidence, that we know we can beat all the teams on the road,” said Ostlund, who played on a line with Alex Tuch and Josh Norris at Seattle, after being recalled from Rochester of the American Hockey League earlier in the week. “That was a huge part of it, tonight.”
The Sabres earned only their second win, all-time, against the Kraken. The previous win came on March 18, 2024, a 6-2 decision at Climate Pledge Arena. The Sabres are 0-4 at KeyBank Center against the Kraken, and 2-3 in Seattle.
How it happened
First period: The Sabres limited the Kraken to three shots on goal in the first and took a 1-0 lead at 17:09 when Ostlund took a pass from a falling Josh Norris on a 2-on-1 and beat Kraken goalie Joey Daccord (20 saves). Norris went awkwardly into the boards after he was clipped by Seattle defenseman Ryker Evans, but skated to the bench on his own power.Second period: Thompson gave the Sabres a 2-0 lead at 10:08 of the second when he and Peyton Krebs closed in on Daccord, on a play that started off Alex Tuch’s takeaway against Vince Dunn, and Thompson beat Daccord on a close-range shot, for his eighth point and fourth goal in the last seven games.
Six seconds into a cross-checking penalty against Rasmus Dahlin, Chandler Stephenson cut the Sabres’ lead to 2-1 on Chandler Stephenson's shot from the left circle, through traffic and off the post, past Sabres goalie Alex Lyon (23 saves), who made his first back-to-back starts since Oct. 28-30.
Third period: Lyon made five saves in the first 10:40 of the third, to help the Sabres maintain a one-goal lead. Zach Benson scored an empty-net goal with 44.8 seconds left to secure the win – only the Sabres’ fourth empty-net goal this season.